Evaluation of near-surface soil moisture data from an AAFC monitoring network in Manitoba, Canada: Implications for L-band satellite validation

Abstract Strongly coupled land–atmosphere data assimilation has not yet been implemented into operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) systems. Up to now, upper-air measurements have been assimilated mainly in atmospheric analyses, while land and near-surface data have been assimilated mainly into land surface models. Thus, this study aims to explore the benefits of assimilating atmospheric and land surface observations within the framework of strongly coupled data assimilation. Specifically, we added soil moisture as a control state within the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF)-based Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) and conducted a series of numerical experiments through the assimilation of 2-m temperature/humidity and in situ surface soil moisture data along with conventional atmospheric measurements such as radiosondes into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model with the Noah land surface model. The verification against in situ measurements and analyses show that compared to the assimilation of conventional data, adding soil moisture as a control state and assimilating 2-m humidity can bring additional benefits to analyses and forecasts. The impact of assimilating 2-m temperature (surface soil moisture) data is positive mainly on the temperature (soil moisture) analyses but on average marginal for other variables. On average, below 750 hPa, verification against the NCEP analysis indicates that the respective RMSE reduction in the forecasts of temperature and humidity is 5% and 2% for assimilating conventional data; 10% and 5% for including soil moisture as a control state; and 16% and 11% for simultaneously adding soil moisture as a control state and assimilating 2-m humidity data.

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Analysis of spatial variability of near-surface soil moisture to increase rainfall-runoff modelling accuracy in SW Hungary

Open Geosciences ◽

10.1515/geo-2015-0017 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

P. Hegedüs ◽

S. Czigány ◽

E. Pirkhoffer ◽

L. Balatonyi ◽

R. Hickey

Keyword(s):

Soil Moisture ◽

Surface Soil ◽

Watershed Scale ◽

Surface Soil Moisture ◽

Near Surface ◽

Moisture Sensor ◽

Soil Moisture Sensor ◽

Soil Moisture Data ◽

Data Points ◽

Monitoring Stations

AbstractBetween September 5, 2008 and September 5, 2009, near-surface soil moisture time series were collected in the northern part of a 1.7 km2 watershed in SWHungary at 14 monitoring locations using a portable TDR-300 soil moisture sensor. The objectives of this study are to increase the accuracy of soil moisture measurement at watershed scale, to improve flood forecasting accuracy, and to optimize soil moisture sensor density.According to our results, in 10 of 13 cases, a strong correlation exists between the measured soil moisture data of Station 5 and all other monitoring stations; Station 5 is considered representative for the entire watershed. Logically, the selection of the location of the representative measurement point(s) is essential for obtaining representative and accurate soil moisture values for the given watershed. This could be done by (i) employing monitoring stations of higher number at the exploratory phase of the monitoring, (ii) mapping soil physical properties at watershed scale, and (iii) running cross-relational statistical analyses on the obtained data.Our findings indicate that increasing the number of soil moisture data points available for interpolation increases the accuracy of watershed-scale soil moisture estimation. The data set used for interpolation (and estimation of mean antecedent soil moisture values) could be improved (thus, having a higher number of data points) by selecting points of similar properties to the measurement points from the DEM and soil databases. By using a higher number of data points for interpolation, both interpolation accuracy and spatial resolution have increased for the measured soil moisture values for the Pósa Valley.

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